bug or infestation on Wikitree?

Question

I was just taking a look at Notables project, something is very weird there,

http://prntscr.com/hl0i3x  

shows what I mean.

Comments

Might be a good idea to explain more about what you are seeing. I am reluctant to try you link as the url does not look like a Wikitree link.

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it's a program called printscreen, one can take a picture of a screen to share.  Use it all the time.

Basically the list of names is in either cyrillic (spelling ?) or Chinese characters.  All of them.

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The image shows the names of the first several notables, as in https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Notables

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Sorry Danielle, I didn't see your comment when I answered and commented.

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that's ok, probably time lag is all it is.  Meanwhile, with the explanation received, might I offer the suggestion that notables be given sub-categories, possibly geographically?  Right now, I don't see that that list can be very useful.

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Yes I agree, any category that gets too big should be divided into subcategories.

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Hello Danielle,

This is the link to the page you are refering to:

https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Category:Notables&until=%26%2324859%3B%26%2326032%3B%26%2335258%3B%26%2332645%3B%E8%BC%89%E6%B9%89

Clicking twice on "(next 200)" starts the list of names written in latin letters as Lennart says in his answer.

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Yep - that's normal. Cyrillic characters tend to float to the top of the sort list, followed by the Chinese characters - takes awhile before you see real English alphabet names. But becoming worldwide will do that for you. I think it's actually kind of awesome that we have representation from so many countries and that our tree is expanding into more and more areas every day. I'm all for continuing to improve the primarily US and English trees, but I'd love to see more from these other areas as well.

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If you know the name of the person you're looking for, it's easier to find them in a single alphabetical list than a hierarchy where you have to guess which direction to drill down in.  You might not know what they're notable for.

Subcategories are useful if you can't remember the name.

There's no reason why the two approaches can't co-exist.

Answer 1

I see what you mean.  The instructions say "Since notables can be many thousands of people over the centuries, they should be placed into appropriate sub-categories, as nested here. See the guidelines for each category."

But there appear to be no sub categories--just hundreds or thousands all grouped into one page.

Comments

I think I remember this being discussed a few months back. Someone had added Japanese notables. I think these are the same profiles.

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Emma, there are indeed 51 subcategories, currently. But whoever templated these hundreds of Asian names as Notable simply did not bother to subcategorize them with the appropriate switch.

And the English speakers cannot apply the appropriate sub-category switch, without knowing the language they are in, at the very least. Unless we simply make a general sub-category, like Asian Notables or Non-English Notables, or East European Notables.

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I think the point of difficulty, is it says they should be placed into appropriate sub-categories, as nested here. See the guidelines for each category.

None of the 51 subcategories you are referring to are nested there or they would show above the profiles under each letter.  And it is not just asian names. Click on any letter and you see the same thing for thousands of profiles.  They are all in the higher category of Notables because the template directs them there.

With all that said, this might change when the template is switched to the sticker for non-PPP profiles.  

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?? Emma, I am the person who actually wrote that text that you are quoting. It simply means that the profile should not be put in the higher level {{Notables}},.which adds the profile to [[Category:Notables]].

Instead, the profile should be added as {{Notables|SubCategory}}, so that the profile will appear only in [[Category:SubCategory]].

The 51 exsiting subcategories start on the page as

A

• Activists and Reformers
• American Notables
• Aristocracy and Nobility
• Artists
• Astronauts
• Australian Notables
• Austrian Notables
• Authors

 

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I see what the problem is, and I don't understand it.  You and I are looking at two completely versions of the same thing.  

I was using the link Rubén gave above of https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Category:Notables&until=%26%2324859%3B%26%2326032%3B%26%2335258%3B%26%2332645%3B%E8%BC%89%E6%B9%89 to see the Notable Category.  When you use this link, the subcategories are not there.  

But when I go to the Notables category through the Notable Project, https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Notables your subcategories are here.  I have no idea where Rubén found that link.

?????

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Ah, Ruben's display is similar to if you click on one of the letters, like A. You will not see the 51 subcategories on any subsequent page.

That is just a limitation of WikiTree in all the category pages.

Answer 2

The exclusively non-latin characters appear before the names written in the latin alphabet. Names starting with an A start on the third page (click "next 200"), followed by B, C, etc.

Comments

Actually I have the Latin letters alphabet first and the Russian and Chinese characters last when I click on the "real" Notables link.

Answer 3

I had a chance to look at some of these profiles, and they don't look like the product of a technical glitch.  These notables were born in places where Latin script was not generally used, so that's why the profiles look so different than what we're used to seeing.

That said, I do think it's odd that so many of them are orphaned, especially now that there's guidance saying that profiles with project boxes need to be project managed.  We could demote these to a notables sticker (not sure if that exists yet).  However, that still doesn't address the reasoning behind creating a notable profile if one isn't interested in managing it for an extended period of time.

Comments

Greg, my reaction was on seeing cyrillic script and Chinese characters only when looking at Notables quickly, as I suggested above, they should have geographic sub-categories.  The list is massive otherwise, not useful for much.

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I agree. Not only nationality, but also a category showing why they are notable could help. Are they aristos? Politicians? Singers? Book authors? TV hosts? Military officers?

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There are other category sections with roles and professions that are outside of Notables. For example, [[Category:Singers]] exists to show all those who are vocalists of some kind or another. There is not a related [[Category:Notable Singers]] as it would likely become a duplicate very quickly. A significant number of Notables do contain more than just the template, indicating what they are Notable for, but this category is intentionally large as it is the container for all profiles that are using the Notables Template.

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There's a number of projects I mark that way. The most common ones are US Civil War, 1776 and Notables.

I inquired once about 1776, and was referred to resources and sources &c. There's 100s,maybe 1000s of 1776 categories. Since that's not what I'm working on, it is not practical for me to spend a week getting up to speed on all those categories, especially since others are working on that who know much more than I do. I could just leave the project and its template off. But I think it's more helpful to at least put the minimal category. People actively engaged in the project can go to the ones just labeled 1776 and add more. My assumption is that it's better not to leave it blank.

My approach on Notables, Civil War and other Projects is similar.

I guess it would be ideal if everyone got conversant on every topic they might encounter, adding categories only after deep and thorough study. Personally, I think that's unrealistic.

Answer 4

Hi Danielle

There is an order of precedence with the starting character in a surname, so all of the profiles which have {{Notables}} will show up in of the Cyrillic alphabet, whichever Far Eastern script (sorry I don't recognize whether it is Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean...), and then the Westernized alphabet.

The unfortunate thing is that there are 51 sub-categories which currently exist, and they are yet to be allocated to their appropriate ones

Comments

What you are looking at in this category is the Notables Template placing the profiles in an initial category. This category is intentionally large, showing all those profiles that are within the Notables Project. It is useful to the project as a whole.

The subcategories were set up, to my understanding, as an experiment to determine if it was practical to manually "also" put them into a second category that would help further sort them. As you can see, there are many many thousands of Notables profiles, so it would take a sizable effort to manually touch every profile to add a second category to properly place them into these groups. Again, before my time, but to my understanding the sub-categories weren't completely abandoned, but they were only in use by a very small number of people and are mostly in disuse.

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they need to be put into implementation really, otherwise this list is simply too bulky to be any use.  Categorization project should be looking at this.

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Scott, I use the sub-category switch with the template, and it works fine. It places the Notables template, but only the subcategory on the profile, not the major Notables category.

So all of these profiles would be best served to make sure that each Notables profile simply uses a subcategory switch. Here is an example:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Copeland-1769

It uses the switch as {{Notables|Business Leaders}}

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I do the same here with notable profiles that I manage

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Hmm - I'll have to think on this, as I did not put a similar switch in the sticker that we'll be using soon. Plus I'm going to need to find a way to track each and every Notables Template profile so that they can be evaluated for template, management, and PPP vs sticker. The bad part about the subcategories is that they are not exclusive to Notables. So while those in the "Notables" category are clear, those fitting into the shared sub-categories are not. I'm sure Ales can write a script to find ones that are and are both in Notables and in these subcategories, but it does make it more challenging to ensure we've covered all of them.

This would definitely be easier if the categories were exclusive to Notables. Yet another interesting discussion we'll need to open up with the categorization team to see what the best approach will be.

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A prime example is:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Artists

It is connected with the following categories:

Categories: Art | Occupations | Notables | Occupations by Name

So it's a sub of each of them and someone who has an interest in art, paints signs for a living, or was famous for painting the Mona Lisa can be found here (or would be here, in theory). It's just another interesting wrinkle we'll need to address as we do a comprehensive review of the profiles.

But either way, I'll see what I can do to adjust the sticker so that it has the same capability.

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Just a thought, but I currently see two sub categories under Notable with only the word: Artists and Scientists. The word notable could be added on to these-- "Notable Artists," "Notable Scientists," etc.  And nestled under a higher category of Artists and Scientists.  More work, but would show the separation

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Scott, you are going to literally have tens or hundreds of thousands of notables. So I am not sure if tracking them as notable within the project is really practical.

One long-term thought that I have always had in mind is to simply rely on the Wikipedia standard for notability, and really only try to track those people for the notables project.

The long-term rule has been that If the profile has a matching Wikipedia article which survives, then it gets the [[Category:Famous People of ...]] along with the Wikipedia link in the bio. So you can track the vast majority of your Notables for project purposes by relying on usage that existing category structure.

So perhaps there could be some kind of report which tracks the difference. For instance, a report to display profile which have a [[Category: Famous (wildcards)]] but which do not have a {{Notables}} template.

And vice versa. So then for maintenance purposes, you could gererate much smaller profile lists to determine which profiles really need to be worked on.

A similar report could also generate a list of profiles that have either the Notables template or the Famous category, but do not have the Project ID account as manager.

And always keeping in mind that a fairly large subset of your Notables are valid for the Project, but do not reach the higher threshold of Wikipedia Famous.

And then also you have many which are Wikpedia Famous, but are handled better on WikiTree by other projects, such as Royal family members in EuroAristos.

So if some of the brilliant tech geniuses here could generate such fluctuating reports of lists of profiles that fit in either one subset but not the other, I think that would give the project a practical way to actually work up and down the lists, for profile improvement and template and category completion, etc.Unless I am dreaming :)

Answer 5

The profiles belong in narrower subcategories, eg [[Category:Japanese Notables]] which would happen if {{Notables|Japanese Notables}} was added to profiles instead of {{Notables}}.

Answer 6

You can jump to a letter - there is a menu for this on the Notables page - which then gives you a list of people whose names begin with that letter in the Western alphabet. I share the hesitation of some about breaking up the list into sub-categories - finding people alphabetically is straightforward. To find them in sub-categories you have to know where to look among the sub-categories - and many notables are notable for more than one thing, or are associated with more than one country, or with countries that have ceased to exist, or with places that have been transferred between countries as borders have shifted, so there would be a heavy reliance on people getting all the detailed use of the sub-categories right. I think some Wikitree contributors, even more so some people involved in one name studies, probably like to see how many people with a particular surname are notable, and think about what people with that surname should be added to the notables category: that would be difficult if all notables were moved into sub-categories.

Comments

maybe so, but when you are trying to find a notable for a specific area with a fairly common name, you have to go through the list one by one.